Jersey rallies new motorsport stamps

50 Years of the World Rally Championship / The Jersey Rally at 40, 

Featuring illustrations by Keith Burns, is a sister issue to 2021’s The Birth of Formula One. It celebrates 50 years of the World Rally Championship and 40 years of the Jersey Rally. 

The World Rally Championship (WRC), formed in 1973, is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport of rallying.

The series, which has a following in Jersey’s thriving motorsports community, currently consists of 13 three-to-four-day rally events driven on surfaces ranging from gravel and tarmac to snow and ice.

In Jersey, local rally driving garnered sporadic interest from 1935, but it wasn’t until the inception of the official Jersey Rally in 1983 that it gained consistent structure, run on closed roads around the Island.

Rallying has since flourished in Jersey, becoming a pivotal fixture on the Island’s calendar. Now a two-day affair with over 80 cars, the annual October event draws crowds to various Island routes, attracting top drivers from across Britain and beyond to challenge Jersey’s best.

Each of the eight stamps in the set features a key car competing in the World Rally Championship over the past fifty years.

The artwork includes models such as the Alpine A110, which won Alpine the first manufacturer World Rally Championship in 1973; the Lancia Stratos HF, the first purpose-built rally car from the Italian marque; and the Audi Quattro A2 Rallye, which helped pioneer all-wheel-drive within the sport.

The miniature sheet depicts the orange Ford Escort Mk. 2 driven by Dave Carrel, who in 1984 became the first Jerseyman to win the Jersey Rally, continuing with wins in ’85 ’86 ’87 and 1988.

Issue date 6 October